Bhopal: A tiny strand of ‘Cheetah hair’, lodged in the crease of the car’s front bumper, has apparently emerged as the most critical clue in unravelling the mystery behind the hit-and-run death of a Cheetah cub on the Agra-Mumbai National Highway in Gwalior on Dec 7.For nearly a week after the incident, the vehicle involved remained unidentified, with no eyewitnesses and no immediate trail to pick up on. The male cheetah cub, KGP-4, was killed around 6.15 am near Simariya Mod under the Ghatigaon police station limits, about 40 km from Gwalior, after being hit by a speeding vehicle while crossing the highway with its sibling.At the time, a monitoring team from Kuno National Park was tracking the cubs through satellite collars from roughly 300 metres away. The team rushed to the spot within minutes, secured the carcass and alerted senior officials. While the cub was crushed under the vehicle’s wheels, its sibling, KGP-3, managed to escape.Senior forest and police officers, including the chief conservator of forest (CCF) in charge of Kuno National Park, divisional forest officers from Gwalior and Kuno, and local police personnel, reached the site.
